Whew. My “short day” ended at 1:30. I double-checked my orders from MD Anderson and I was supposed to be receiving 90 minutes of Gemzar, not thirty minutes which is the typical treatment. So that makes my short day long and my long day even longer. But this is what my doctor from MDACC wants, and there’s a reason we chose that doctor. I met with Dr. F. today to go over my symptoms from the past few weeks. She was very impressed. Apparently I’m on a very high dosage of what I’m taking and she thought that I would be much worse off than I was. How about that? For once in the past six months, my body did something good! I’m still not sure if it will get worse as I get further along, but for now I’m happy to hear that I am doing better than my doctor expected.

My hair has started falling out. It’s not excessive but it’s definitely happening. Did you know that when hair falls out it’s not just the hair on your head? My eyelashes were the first thing to fall out and boy is that weird. I still have some but every time I find one I’m a little freaked out. I hope they don’t all fall out.

Dr. F. filled out some paperwork for me today to send to the company that is handling my student loans. We have been trying to get the payments suspended while I am taking chemo, and I called a week or so ago to follow up on that. After speaking with me a little bit, the representative brought someone else on the line to talk to me about something they have called “Total and Permanent Disability”. They sent me the paperwork, I filled out a section, Dr. F. filled out a section, and we faxed it back. Now they will review it and then they will send it off to the US Department of Education. They will then decide if they want to discharge part or all of my student loans. I’m almost afraid to hope for it, because part of me really feels like we should pay that money back. But considering I will never be going back to work, it would be a huge blessing for us to have it discharged.

We meet Wednesday morning with the teachers at the local elementary school to see the results from Little Man’s tests and write his IEP (Individualized Education Plan). I’ve done this many times from the teacher side of the table but never from the parent side. It will be interesting to see if it is any different. I should probably scrounge around the internet and see if there are any standards for children aged three so I know what goals to have in mind. I guess that’s about it for now. I’m getting a little tired so I’m going to go rest.